The appeals court had ordered the Council on Affordable Housing to get back to work at once, noting that the agency "has not done anything" to comply with two prior court decisions directing it to produce a new rulebook for towns and developers that was due Feb. 26.

A full schedule of meetings for COAH spanning from this week until May was drawn up by the appellate judges, with the first meeting set for tomorrow.

If the agency refused to meet, its board members would face contempt charges and possibly fines and "civil detention," Judge Jose Fuentes wrote for a three-judge panel in the decision released Friday.

The Supreme Court did not address any of the fundamentals of the case today, issuing only a one-page order that stayed Fuentes's ruling "pending further order."

In a separate letter issued alongside the order, the court asked Constable to resubmit one of his legal filings in the housing case by noon on Thursday.

An assistant state attorney general, Robert Lougy, argued that Fuentes and the other judges overreached by threatening "incarceration" for members of the executive branch.

In another case, Lougy noted, Christie and Constable are asking the Supreme Court to give them until May 1 to write new affordable housing guidelines for towns and developers, and have yet to hear back from the justices.